


until you come around again

by ambiguously



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 2012!Tony Stark, 2023!Peter Parker, Canonical Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Peter goes back to say good-bye.





	until you come around again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



Aunt May said money wasn't a big deal all the time when Peter was growing up, though she usually said it right after he caught her swearing the air blue over a late notice for another bill. Money wasn't important, and still she had to sit down when Peter Googled the cost of his first year's tuition at the colleges he was applying to. Tuition prices had dropped during the long five years when everyone was Blipped. Now that they were all back, costs had snapped right back up with demand.

"We'll figure it out," she told him, staring at the student-friendly website.

He hadn't hoped, and he hadn't dared ask, but he wondered how much of a coincidence it was that a letter arrived at the apartment via courier the next day. Peter's heart gave a twist when he read the words _The Stark Foundation_.

Mr. Stark was dead. Peter was sure of that. He'd been there, sad and panicked, snot running down his face as Miss Potts had closed his eyes. He'd gone to the funeral, and he'd accepted his own place as one of many protectors of Earth and the universe around them. He understood. And still. Every time he saw a mention of the Stark Foundation, every time one of his companies was in the news, every time he passed a building that he knew Mr. Stark had helped build, or had owned, or had set foot in, a hot, tight, crazy wish shuddered through him. For that half-second, Peter believed.

For a half-second, he was sure Mr. Stark had sent him this letter, and would walk through the door of his apartment with a clever grin and an adventure in his pocket.

Peter opened the letter, his moment of euphoria already fading. A new feeling replaced it as he scanned the words. Wrapped up in polite HR, the Stark Foundation congratulated him on his academic achievements and informed him he would receive a fully-funded scholarship for a four-year program at the University of Southern New York. Peter was familiar with USNY; not only was it local via the subway, Dr. Banner taught there.

Miss Potts' signature was at the bottom.

Aunt May said, "You are writing them the nicest Thank You letter of all time." Then she burst into tears.

* * *

If life as a friendly neighborhood superhero and occasional savior of the whole planet had been hard to juggle with high school, college was an order of magnitude worse. Peter'd always been smart. May told him he needed to challenge himself, not coast through his classes. Now he knew what she'd meant, and he regretted every night he'd spent playing XBox at Ned's apartment instead of studying for a test he already knew the answers to. High school chemistry was one thing. A full load of chemical engineering courses on top of patrolling and his duties with the Avengers was an universe away.

"You okay?" May asked him as Peter dragged himself in close to midnight. "Too much partying again?"

He grinned weakly at the joke. "Party animal." He yawned. "The librarian kicked us out when they closed for the night."

She gave him a hug, catching herself in the midst of a yawn of her own. "Get some sleep."

"After I look over this chapter one more time. I've got a quiz tomorrow." Before she could remind him a good night's sleep was as important as anything else, he added, "Wouldn't want to risk my scholarship."

Her face moved into a series of worries. "Don't stay up too late, okay?"

"I won't." And if he hadn't gotten the all-Avenger alert about the ships hovering over Austin ten minutes later, he would have gone to bed. All he could think as he dragged himself into bed was that things would be easier, just a little, with Mr. Stark there.

* * *

He avoided signing up for classes from Dr. Banner. Banner's classes were packed by adoring fans who wanted to see the Hulk up close, and who didn't understand that he expected them to turn in their homework. The kid Peter used to be would have jumped at the same chance, slipping in Avengers-only jokes for the two of them to enjoy while the rest of his classmates were mystified. He was older now. Spending that much time with Dr. Banner wouldn't be good for either of them, and how would he feel if his teammate and friend flunked him?

Which was why he groaned when he got his schedule for junior year first semester, and discovered Dr. Banner was the only teacher for Particle Physics, which was a graduation requirement for Peter's degree.

"Hi," Peter said on the first day of class. Dr. Banner, who'd seen him out of costume dozens of times and saved his life at least that many, didn't even look at him as he marked his attendance book with a specially-made pen in his huge green hand.

"Parker."

And that was that. He didn't call on Peter any more or less often than any other student. He gave him the same assignments, and graded him just as hard.

Peter looked at the 'C' at the top of his exam, the one he'd taken after missing the study session of class the day before because he was in Madrid fighting a surprise Kree attack next to his teacher. Neither of them had slept in over forty hours by the time Peter had blinked and scrawled his answers to the long-form questions.

He lingered after class. By this point in the year, the hero-worship from the other students had worn off, leaving Dr. Banner alone to clear up his stuff before his next lecture.

Peter showed him the exam. "Really?"

"You didn't explain the purpose of the Hamiltonian in that equation correctly, and you didn't support what you did say."

"It was the morning after Madrid."

"And?" Banner gave him a calm though not unkind look. "The young woman sitting next to you works two jobs to pay her tuition. The young man to your right has an infant at home and he's a single parent. Everyone's got a life outside of school, Pete."

Their outside lives wouldn't mean the choice between sacrificing themselves and saving the universe, Peter thought but didn't say. They didn't spend every night wondering if this would be the night, if they'd have to dive on the grenade, or snap their fingers. He still heard the sound in his dreams.

It wasn't fair. None of it was fair. But tell that to someone who'd been turned into a giant green monster by a lab mistake. Dr. Banner already knew life wasn't fair.

"I guess so," he said. "See you later."

* * *

"I can't believe Hulk gave me a C." It was the next day, and Peter was still fuming internally.

"What's the tuition like at that place?" Ant-Man asked him. They'd joined up for an impromptu rescue of some intergalactic peace animal that had been stranded on Earth by an unexpected wormhole. Ant-Man was in town looking at colleges with his daughter when the alert came in from Monica, relaying the message from Carol. Peter didn't like to think about how many Avengers missions were more or less assigned by retweet. This one had been basic enough: rescue the animal, signal Captain Marvel, wait for pick-up, get back to studying for his Lit test.

"I don't know. I have a scholarship." The creature squirmed in his hands. He got along with Ant-Man though they didn't spend much time together. After the first few jokes about their respective code names, it got old fast.

"I gotta find Cassie more of those. She's a bright kid."

"You could ask the Stark Foundation." The twist in his stomach came again, and that half-second of belief that saying Mr. Stark's name would make him appear.

"That's not a bad idea."

They had nothing better to do while they waited, and Peter hated for the feeling to end. "You were on that last mission with Mr. Stark, weren't you?" he asked, even though he knew the answer.

"That's right. Him and Captain America," he hesitated, "you know, the first one, not Sam. And Hulk was there. Hey, you want me to have a chat with Hulk?"

"No!" Panic flashed through him. "No, that's not necessary," he recovered. "I was just wondering. You all traveled through time together."

"Yeah. Weird, right? We went to 2012 together, and we got two of the three stones, but we lost the third one. The Tesla."

"Tesseract."

"Yeah. Iron Man and Captain America went back to 1970 to get it from another timeline. Iron Man stole it from his own father."

Dr. Banner had explained the timeline splits. He always used the Infinity Stone time heist as his opening lecture on the first day of Particle Physics, although Peter had already eaten his fill of Multiverse theory, thank you. Go back in time, make a new timeline. Mr, Stark had forged two new universes on his last quest to save this one.

There was that hope again.

"Weird to think there's other versions of us running around with their own Infinity Stones," said Ant-Man. The tell-tale sound of the portal Captain Marvel was using these days began to shimmer in the back of his eardrums.

"Yeah. I wonder if alternate me is holding a space cat right now."

"I wanted to ask Captain America if he went forward in his new timeline to take a peek before he came back to ours. I never got the chance." Ant-Man's face went sad for a moment, and Peter wondered if his own features made that same expression every time he thought about Mr. Stark.

Then Ant-Man said, "I guess if he had enough of Hank's particles, he could have gone anywhere."

As the portal opened with light and Captain Marvel appeared in front of them to accept the space cat, he felt something new. The spark of hope touched an idea, and his mind was alight with a plan.

* * *

Peter considered himself on the sunny side of vigilanteism: not killing muggers but webbing them to the walls and calling the cops. His job often involved letting himself inside places where he technically had no legal right to be and only the tenuous concepts of 'investigation' or 'hot pursuit' covered his conscience. He even wound up paying for the occasional broken windows out of his meager pay from his work-study.

This was to say, he was technically guilty of breaking and entering a lot as a side effect of his job. Peter told that to the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach as he bypassed the electronic locks on Professor Banner's lab. He'd put everything back when he was finished. He'd even tell Dr. Banner that he'd figured out there might be a security problem with his system, and that Peter would be happy to help him devise a stronger one.

His conscience, which sounded a lot like Aunt May scolding him in his ear, told him that wasn't enough. The figure sitting on his other shoulder spoke with a different voice, lower and charming and full of promise and adventure, and Peter listened. Swiping the Pym particles from Ant-Man as they'd said goodbye had been an even smaller prick to his better side.

Dr. Banner should have disassembled this thing. Peter walked around the machine, knowing he was making a mistake, knowing Banner should never have left something like this lying around unless he too meant to use it someday.

Just one trip. Just one look into a universe where things had gone differently. Just one hour seeing him again, not even talking to him. Just watching. Peter would go be a tourist in a timeline where Mr. Stark was still alive, and he'd settle this coiling grief he'd carried over the last few years that punctured him over and over every time he heard Mr. Stark's name. He'd go, and he'd come back here.

Easy.

* * *

Swinging upside-down through city streets, hundreds of feet from the ground, Peter was fine. Jerking and jinking through the annals of time? That made him seasick. The fancy genius watch on his wrist brought him to what looked and smelled like New York. Peter celebrated his arrival by putting his head between his own knees and successfully avoiding getting sick all over the pavement.

When he could breathe again, he took his bearings. His time stream space suit had vanished neatly, another wonder of Stark tech. His heart gave a twist at the thought, but this time, it was without pain.

Captain America had gone back to each time point and returned the things he could, but this time point was missing a Tesseract where it was supposed to be. Somewhere in this thread of time, Thor's brother was causing a lot more mischief than he did in Peter's home universe. That wasn't Peter's problem. The mess around him in the streets wasn't his problem either. He was just visiting. This was like being in a VR simulation or a really intense 4-D movie and he wasn't going to get involved.

That resolve lasted three long minutes before he saw a middle-aged woman, a gash on her forehead. He'd picked up a couple of First Aid classes after that run-in Ned had, and instinct took over. "Hey, ma'am," he said in his friendly voice. "Let me help you with that." One compress and a slow walk to find one of the emergency personnel still cleaning up the area later, Peter was back on his search. Not getting involved. Making his way through the blocked, dusty, or broken streets towards the only destination he could think of.

One lost dog, a biker trying to get his ride untangled from the cab that had landed on top of it, and three would-be looters who decided they didn't need those Rolexes on display in the broken shop after all, Peter thought maybe, just maybe, superheroing was the kind of problem you had to attend meetings for. They'd sit around in chairs. "Hi, I'm Peter Parker, and I'm a do-gooder," he'd say. His imagination helpfully provided the "Hi, Peter," and the friendly face sitting next to him.

Only this time it wasn't his imagination.

There.

He'd been ten going on eleven when the sky opened up and the Chitauri came through. Twenty blocks away from here, Uncle Ben was pushing through the crowds shambling hom along the ruined streets, trying to find Peter in the mess. Peter's attention to current events at the time had been limited to wondering if he was going to die from all the falling buildings, wondering if Uncle Ben was going to kill him for ruining his new sneakers during his escape from the trouble, and wondering which would be worse.

He hadn't paid much attention to the Avengers that day. He hadn't known, for example, that after the battle, Mr. Stark would be out of his suit, clearly still recovering from his injuries, and helping out at the ground close to Stark Tower. (He did remember it was Stark Tower back then. May had complained when she'd read about it in the paper during construction.)

Peter spent a long moment just watching him now. Mr. Stark was eleven years younger, and fifty years less weighed down even here in the aftermath of a battle that had almost killed him. His sleeves were rolled up, and he was giving instructions to the Stark employees helping out with the cleanup.

He was alive.

"Hey," he said, when he happened to see Peter standing there.

Peter froze. He'd come here with no intention of speaking to Mr. Stark. Dr. Banner had explained the alternate timelines thing, but Peter had a bad feeling he'd still manage to mess up something like in that old movie Back to the Future where the guy wound up kissing his own mom.

"Uh, hey."

"You busy?"

Peter folded his arms. "No. No, not really."

Mr. Stark flashed him a smile. "Great. You see that wheelbarrow the workers just dropped off? Start filling it." He gestured at the rubble blocking the street.

"Oh! You want me to help?" Mr. Stark gave him that tight smile again. Peter turned to the street. It was a mess, and he longed for a pair of work gloves. As if reading his mind, Mr. Stark received a box of them from inside, more leftovers from the recent construction on the tower, and began passing them out.

This hadn't been Peter's plan, but it wasn't a bad change. The man he'd come here to see was ten feet away, putting in what Peter recognized as a little PR time. Peter was stronger than he looked, and could lift much heavier chunks of busted concrete than the other people around him who'd been roped into helping. He noticed Mr. Stark's impressed glances every time he heaved another big load.

"You wanna go a little easy there, Hercules? The hospitals are crowded enough today without you walking in with a sprain." Peter couldn't tell if the concern was genuine worry about his well-being, or precluding a lawsuit later, and he didn't care. The attention felt good either way.

"I'm fine, Mr. Stark. Really." He smiled. "Just glad to help."

That earned him a pair of raised eyebrows and a more intent expression. Mr. Stark held out his hand, covered in a work glove of his own. "We haven't been introduced. Tony." Maybe this was another PR thing, but it was the first time Mr. Stark had ever invited this level of informality.

Peter took his hand and shook. "Peter."

Mr. Stark – _Tony_ – turned and lifted a chunk of rubble into Peter's barrow. "What do you do, Peter?"

"I'm in school."

"What are you studying?"

The casualness of the question, the conversation, everything, tied Peter into a sad knot. "Chemical engineering."

Tony nodded. "Columbia?"

"USNY."

"Columbia's got a better ChemE program."

"I've got a scholarship."

"You could get a scholarship to Columbia."

Peter had wondered about that. His program was good, but there were better ones nearby, and Mr. Stark had graduated from MIT with Colonel Rhodes. His scholarship could have been to anywhere, but someone had chosen USNY for a reason. Someone had wanted him to be around Dr. Banner.

"I'll think about it," Peter said, but what he was really thinking was that Miss Potts had signed his scholarship letter, and she'd known very well what Dr. Banner had in his lab. "I'm considering changing my major."

"Mechanical? Aerospace?"

"Journalism."

"Just what the world needs, another muckraker."

Peter hefted another chunk of rubble. "I like to think of myself as a do-gooder. Like you."

The compliment bought him a smile, and Peter tucked it away in his memory. This was why he'd come.

* * *

They worked into the night. City crews worked around them. He thought he saw Liz's dad and his team go by with their trucks, and it took all Peter's resolve not to follow. More people joined in or left to deal with the mess in their parts of town as the day went on. Peter stayed where he was, helping to clear out a sizeable portion of the streets surrounding what people were already starting to call Avengers Tower.

"You got somewhere to be?" Tony asked him as they moved their last load for the day.

He thought about Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Two busses from here, and he could see his uncle one more time. He'd made his choice for this trip. "Not really."

"Fine. Dinner's on me." He waved to the remaining workers who'd stayed to help. A few more people who hadn't actually helped joined the crowd heading to the sandwich shop down the block, but Tony didn't seem to mind. He gave a smile to the surprised worker at the counter, gave him a credit account for the tab, and told him whatever the rest of them ordered could be charged to him. The line snaked out the door. Peter found himself first up, and stumbled through an order. He was handed a wrapped sandwich a minute later as the line moved.

"It's takeout," Tony told the others. "Go home." Peter turned, and felt a hand on his shoulder. "Not you." He pulled Peter towards a table and they sat down.

"Aren't you getting anything?"

"I had a late lunch after the battle." Mr. Stark – and right now he was every inch the charming but patronizing man Peter had hero-worshiped – offered him with a pleasant smile underlining the cold look in his eyes. "Now, who are you?"

Peter flustered. "Nobody. My name's Peter."

"Did SHIELD put you here to babysit? I thought they learned better after Romanoff got sick of me."

"I'm not SHIELD. I'm…."

"Your surveillance technique is terrible. Do they not teach your agents any kind of stealth?" He gestured to Peter's outfit. "Your clothes are all wrong."

"What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Nobody likes Star Wars any more. You're trying too hard to be casual. So who sent you?"

"No one sent me. I came by myself." He felt the panic rise. He should never have tried this. "Look, I gotta get home."

"You said you had no place to be." He leaned forward. "I'm being nice about this because you did a good job out there. You don't want to see me not nice."

Peter remembered his face after the ferry. "I've seen it."

The slip earned him an appraising second glance. "Okay. Not SHIELD. Fanboy stalker. Listen up, Fatal Attraction, you're cute, but if I find you boiling JARVIS, you're going to wish the cops got to you first."

"No! It's not.... I'm not stalking you, Mr. Stark. I just wanted to see you."

"Up close? Personal?"

"Again." The word was out before he could call it back into his mouth.

He watched Mr. Stark run through his mental inventory, and realized he was wondering if he'd slept with Peter. The thought flushed through him, coming out red on his cheeks. Peter had stained his sheets too many times waking up from that dream.

"It's been a while since I had a night I don't remember," Tony said after a long moment. "And you'd have been pretty young then." His glance flickered over Peter, searching for a familiar clue. "Really young."

Peter shook his head, the embarrassment high on his face now. "It wasn't like that."

"You sure? Because you could stop traffic outside with that red of a glow you've got going."

"I'm sure! We never. We didn't." He couldn't believe this was the conversation he was having. He wasn't supposed to have any conversations. He was supposed to be observing.

"But you wanted to. And I don't remember. Sorry." To Peter's shock, he took his hand.

Peter threw on a joking smile. "I'm not that memorable."

"I find that very hard to believe." Mr. Stark fixed him with a stare. "What year are you from?" 

"What?"

Tony rolled over Peter's hand in his grasp. "Nice design on your watch. Temporal control. You're here from another timeline." He let out a breath. "That, by the way, is only the third weirdest thing to happen to me today. You're not my son from the future, are you? Because that would take you up to the silver medal spot."

A whole new host of awful moved through Peter's head in one blazing moment. "No. Definitely not. No."

He watched Tony relax. "Good." He smile was easier now. "So tell me, what year are you from, and what's a handsome young man such as yourself doing watching me?"

Peter tensed. "I wanted to see you again."

Emotions played over Tony's face. "How long from now?"

He wondered how his own face looked. "A while. Not nearly long enough."

"And you came back to see me? We must have been pretty close." The smile changed now, became fonder. He'd faced death today, Peter remembered. Maybe that was the best time to find out for sure that no one ever wins that particular race in the long run.

He expected Tony to muse about mortality, or to go for a joking guess about how he died. He didn't expect him to lean over the table and kiss him, quickly and simply, right in front of anyone who happened to look over from the sandwich line. The windows were covered with posters advertising the latest specials, and what glass remained was covered in blown grime from the battle. Didn't matter. Peter felt like he was under a spotlight on stage.

"Uh, hi," Peter said as Tony moved away.

"Not that close?" Tony asked. There was a cool but interested look in his eyes.

This was the opposite of not interfering. This was threatening to change a lot of things. But this was what a small, quiet, hopeful voice inside himself had hoped would happen. The voice that believed. The voice inside Peter that refused to accept this man was gone forever. The voice that had brought him here.

"Not yet." Peter gave his best impression of that same cool expression.

"I almost died today."

"I know."

"And now you tell me I'm going to die someday soon."

"I never said soon."

"Soon enough." That smile again. "And you came all the way back to see me, when we're not that close, at least not yet." He sat back in his rickety chair at the table, ignoring the people who were watching them now. "Seems like the perfect time to enjoy being alive. Interested?"

"Are you...? Did you just...?" Peter couldn't finish the sentence, but his brain let him finish the thought, and he did like that image. _Why did you really come back?_ asked the little voice inside himself, and he knew the sound of that voice. If he acted like some naive kid now, this one chance would slip through his hands forever.

Tony stood up. "One time offer, kid. I'm sure you've got a time to get back to, and I have a huge mess to clean up. We could get back to work, or we could celebrate being alive together." He started walking towards the door, ignoring the people still in line, including the ones with their phones out.

Peter got to his feet. "Mr. Stark?"

"Tick-tock," he said, and he was out the door. Peter's feet couldn't carry him fast enough.

"Mr. Stark?"

"If you're coming with me, you've got to stop that. Call me Tony. Or we could go with pet names. I've always wanted to be a Don Fernando."

It was a kind of magic, walking in his trail. Mr. Stark carried a glow of confidence with him, even if Peter could see the edges of it fraying. He'd had a very long day today, and he was grasping at an anchor point. Peter hadn't come here with the intention of supporting him, but here he was.

"Tony," he said, enjoying the word in his mouth. His lips still felt the tingle from where he'd been kissed. "I didn't come here for this."

"But here you are following me back to my place. You could have stayed and finished your sandwich." They reached the cracked doors to the tower. Mr. Stark and his companion were waved inside.

The absurdity hit him. "I missed you so much."

"You're sure you're not my kid?"

"Positive."

"Not Pepper's kid? Rhodey's kid? Or Happy. You could be Happy's kid."

"No. No! I'm not anybody's kid. Nobody you know. My parents were gone even before this year."

"Mine too." They reached the elevator. Peter stepped inside. As soon as the door closed, Tony pressed him into the wall, fists wrapped in his shirt. "Tell me who you are." Without the suit, Peter could easily push him away. He made himself hold still.

"Peter! My name's Peter." But the shirt had ridden up, and the suit he wore underneath poked through.

Tony backed away. "And that is?"

Peter pulled his shirt down. "My costume." In for a penny. "You designed it."

"Red fetish gear. Interesting."

"No! I'm a hero. Like you." Peter yanked his shirt over his head, letting Mr. Stark see the symbol blazed on his chest, the making of the lightweight armor.

Fingers moved over him, unembarassed as they poked at the material, curiosity taking over. "I've got some prototype ideas for this kind of body armor. They don't really go with the whole Iron Man aesthetic." He glanced at Peter's face. "You really are from the future."

"Yeah."

"My future."

He knew his own face gave away too much. Mr. Stark said, "Right, my bad, we covered that. I'm dead, but you're here." The elevator door opened. The penthouse suite was a mess. "Sorry. The maid hasn't been in since the Hulk beat up a god in my living room."

"What did that look like? Dr. Banner doesn't like talking about it."

"So Bruce isn't dead. Good for him." His tone aimed for light, and failed. "Drink?" Tony pulled out a decanter and poured himself a large amount of golden liquid into a glass. "Are you old enough to drink?"

"Yeah. No, no drink, thanks." He looked around. "I never got to see this place. Very nice. Good décor," he said, hoping to sound like someone who'd seen plenty of penthouse suites.

"Are you sure you're old enough to drink?"

"Look, Mr. Stark...."

"Tony."

"I should go."

"That's your call. I won't make you stay." He sat on the sofa, dusting debris off absently. "Full disclosure: I was going to. Get you up here, get you naked and tie you up, give Fury a call. But that suit. That's real. You traveled through time to see me. Not my kid, not some weird Terminator going back in time to sleep with your friend's dad thing. You came here for me."

"I missed you."

Tony dusted off the place next to him on the sofa. "Then stay." His voice was roughened, maybe by his drink, maybe by the terrible day, maybe by everything he was coming to grips with. He still had scrapes and bruises from the battle. He was looking at someone who'd seen him die. He needed something solid tonight to hold onto.

Everyone needed a life outside of who they were during the day, if only so they could go on being themselves later.

Peter sat next to him on the sofa, and pulled the glass from his hand. He took a sip, instantly regretting it as he coughed the burn all the way down.

But Tony was smiling now, and some of the lines on his face eased.

"Tell me you've had more experience with sex than you have with booze."

Peter set the drink aside. Then he took Tony's face in his hands, and heart hammering, he kissed him. "Let's find out."


End file.
